Joy… Disney?!

Early last week, Disney took the Internet world by surprise and released a new t-shirt influenced by the 70s band Joy Division’s album cover, Unknown Pleasures.

It would seem love most definitely did tear the world apart over this highly controversial choice of print for the popular children’s brand. The original album cover was designed by Peter Saville and was the first to use pulsar radio waves to create design.

The Disney t-shirt sees the pattern replicated inside a silhouette of Mickey’s head.  Describing it on the website, Disney states: “This Waves Mickey Mouse Tee incorporates Mickey’s image within the graphic of the pulse of a star. That’s appropriate given few stars have made bigger waves than Mickey!”

That’s not, however, what most Joy Division fans are saying.  The link being drawn between the band and the place where dreams are made is causing a mix of reactions, with most JD followers being simply irritated. Having taken their name from a Nazi sex-slave programme, and with Ian Curtis having committed suicide in 1980, Joy Division have indeed created waves (tidal waves if anything) in comparison to Mickey.  But they are clearly not “waves” that are connected to the happiest place in the world.  Some have gone as far as suggesting that the art, music and commercial industries now no longer have any boundaries.  And some, well, they simply love it.

The t-shirt costs just £16.00 but has already sold out. It seems that, despite all the outrage, there are a lot of Disney-loving Joy Division fans out there in the world.

Kellie Griffiths
Photos: Courtesy of Disney